


something stronger than magic

by ultraviolence



Series: something stronger than magic (past life/Master AU) [3]
Category: Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Drama and Angst, I promise the angst is very minor in this part, M/M, Master AU, Possible Soulmates, Rivalry, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 14:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13766010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolence/pseuds/ultraviolence
Summary: "Arjuna’s brown gaze was direct, straight to the core. Karna could feel the fire of it, the heat of his resolve and determination, although beyond that is still an uncharted, undiscovered island to him. Arjuna puzzled him as much as he challenged him. 'Do you believe in fate?'”Part III: Arjuna pays Karna a visit in his office. A conversation between the two happens, and a little something else. AU.





	something stronger than magic

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank @RaspberyLjuice, @tjpy24, and @junjoupurelove on Twitter, for providing me with silly and salty convos, inspiration, and for inspiring me to continue this series. You guys are seriously gold. Thanks for reading this.
> 
> Now, onwards--[Here's a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/starfaell/playlist/5llf9Dup9DH7tshhUPi3FV) that I made for these two, who kept tugging at my heartstrings these days. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It was the same dream again last night. A dream of his final moments, of a tangled-up fate and a cosmic war, and of something that he imagine was a cry of desperation and regret, before the darkness took him. 

A familiar voice was pulling him now from a familiar, yet more comforting darkness, pulling him forward into the light like the artefacts he’d dug up in the course of his work. Karna woke up groggily, realising that he’d fallen asleep on his desk in his office—a dreamless sleep, thank the gods—and feeling slightly embarrassed that he did. He doesn’t usually fall asleep at work, especially when he’s sorting out important paperwork that needed to be done before he flies out to New York with his assistant, and said assistant was the one who wakes him up, staring at him expectantly to respond to his query. Karna pushes his reading glasses down momentarily—people his age doesn’t need them, but it was more of a habit than prescription glasses—to rub his eyes quickly, before pushing them back up again, and pulls himself up to a respectable sitting position. His gaze roved at the papers before him for a moment before he shifted his gaze to his assistant, who was still waiting expectantly. 

“I apologise,” Karna said, dusting himself off for a bit, “this usually doesn’t happen.”

“I know,” his assistant said, a bright young man who’d just completed his bachelor’s degree in archaeology, a Londoner through and through, and a promising young Mage, “it’s alright, sir.”

“What were you saying?”

“Um, there’s someone here to see you—“

As if on a cue, the door was pushed open, a little too hard for Karna’s tastes, but not too surprising; as for the person behind it, his expression was just as hard, but neither that nor his presence was surprising, either.

“I see,” Karna said, his attention shifted to the newly arrived man. “Leave us, please.”

“But the papers, sir—“

“I’ll get them done in time,” Karna told him, stoically. “Now please, if you will.”

The assistant mumbled his assent and left the room, his gaze lingering slightly on Arjuna as he did. Arjuna entered the room, properly, his own gaze thoughtful for a moment as he studies the office, and he closes the door behind him. There, a silence hung between them as thick and as tangible as a dark forest, or forgotten memories.

“Your office is nice,” Arjuna started, a trace of awkwardness in his silvery voice. Karna would have said that there is the barest hint of an unknown accent in the way he speaks, but Arjuna covers it well. His movements were still graceful, if somewhat awkward, and he had calloused hands—an _archer’s_ hands, Karna thought—which periodically entered their habitat in the pockets of his jacket. “Though I am told this isn’t your main office.”

“Thank you. My main office is with the Institute, in New York,” Karna said, rising slightly from his seat to beckon the other, hoping that the uninvited sleep that took him earlier doesn’t show in his face or bearings. “Please, take a seat.”

Arjuna didn’t. Instead, he hovers awkwardly between the door and the empty seat in front of Karna’s desk, like a lover scolded, or a distant cousin. Karna gave him a slight, encouraging smile, but Arjuna huffs under his breath, putting both of his hands in his pocket, and looked away. Karna stood up straight and stared at him, waiting, expectantly. He had the look of a man who wanted to say something. And he _did_ come to say something. That is why Karna wasn’t surprised when Arjuna showed up.

“What are you here for? You are here to say something,” Karna told him, after a prolonged period of silence, and seated himself back in his seat. Arjuna remained stubbornly where he was, hands in his pockets, still not looking at Karna. “You came here to apologise.” 

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. Karna wasn’t surprised either when the corners of Arjuna’s mouth curled into something approaching disgust and infuriation. Karna raised an eyebrow. “You’re certainly not here for the pleasantries,” he added, shifting his attention for a moment at the papers waiting for his attention. “Well? Speak up.”

He looked up just in time to see Arjuna’s hand closing into a fist by his side. “Don’t think you could order me around like that,” he said, harshly, raising his gaze to meet Karna’s. “Or speak to me like that.”

“Ah, that means I have correctly guessed what you came here for.” 

“Say that again,” Arjuna said, and he looked angry as angry could ever be, but Karna returned his look with a calm one, started signing the topmost paper on the stack, and then put it away in another stack. “And this fist will meet your face.”

There was another silence—Karna could feel Arjuna’s tension, but he felt calm, unruffled, unhurried even, even if he had a flight to catch in a couple of hours’ time—and Karna didn’t bother ruining it with words, instead letting the younger man cool down, doing what he was supposed to be doing with the papers. It almost felt peaceful, like this. Almost natural. 

Arjuna took a deep breath, and exhaled. Karna looked up from his papers. “Well?” he said, taking off his glasses for a moment. Their gazes met, and Karna could see _everything_ in Arjuna’s eyes—fury, doubt, _fear_ —before he looked away. His hand relaxed, but there was still a hardness to his face. His expression was still closed, a locked door in the middle of an inaccessible labyrinth. But somehow, Karna felt like he had known the younger man a little better. 

“I came here to apologise,” he said, grudgingly taking his jacket off and hang it on the hanger, a beautifully made white jacket, in contrast with Karna’s crimson one, “for what…I’ve said during dinner last week.” a rush of blood stains his dark cheeks, “I shouldn’t have said those things and for that, I apologise.”

He didn’t acknowledge that Karna had correctly guessed that he came here to apologise earlier, but Karna chose not to press his luck. Arjuna still hovered awkwardly, his hands still in his pockets, as if he doesn’t quite know where to fit himself in Karna’s office. As if he doesn’t quite know what to do now. Karna considers the display to be ironic, if not somewhat funny, as it was very different from the very confident man he knows and heard so much about, and yet, even now, Arjuna’s presence exudes power, much like him. Karna has no illusion about himself, nor the world around him. He smiles again, slightly.

“I have forgiven you,” he told him, gently, remembering the night, and meaning every single word of it. “Now, please, will you sit down?”

There was another awkward pause, and Arjuna accepted his invitation by sitting down in the empty seat across Karna, hands in his lap, avoiding Karna’s gaze. “Would this be suitable?” he said, gruffly, slowly meeting Karna’s gaze. 

“Yes,” Karna said, rising again from his seat, “I have a flight to catch in a few hours, but we should have sufficient time. Do you want tea?”

“Yes,” Arjuna said, his gaze following Karna’s movements for a moment, before looking up at the ceiling. Perhaps there was something interesting in there, Karna thought, as he rang his assistant discreetly for some boiled water. “Please.” there was another awkward pause, in which Karna’s assistant arrived presently with the boiled water—and left—and Karna fetched the cups and poured the water before putting in the tea. “You’re not American,” a statement, not a question, “so why are you with the Atlas Institution?”

The subtext was that he could do so much better. Karna left Arjuna’s tea black—he was guessing that the other man likes his tea that way—while he poured a little sugar into his, and brought the tray over to his desk, offering Arjuna the cup that was meant for him. Arjuna accepted it, sipping it lightly, gratefully. “As you said during the dinner,” Karna answered, settling back down in his seat. Arjuna cringed a little at his words. “I am an outcast,” Karna ploughed through, holding the cup in his hands for a moment and letting it warm them, before he took a sip. It was still boiling hot, so he put it back down, and he noticed Arjuna wasn’t really bothered by it (although Karna could spot him cringing lightly so it could be an act, Karna did had a habit of using water that some would call beyond boiling point). “My talents was sufficiently wasted in the Mage’s Association. Therefore, I willingly chose to relocate to the Institution and pursued my magical pursuits through it instead.”

“You still didn’t answer my question,” Arjuna said, calmly, sipping his tea. “Why are you with the Institution, really?”

Karna raised an eyebrow, crossing a leg over the other. “Are you here to interview my motivations?”

He was well aware of their precarious truce—of how much of an edge of a cliff they actually were sitting in—of their rocky relationship (if it could be called that), and of Arjuna’s temper, that could flare up any moment now. Karna knows he should be more cautious, yet something about Arjuna…well, something about Arjuna makes him want to crack him open, pick his brain and, most importantly, take a walk with his heart. Karna, in another word, was dying to know what motivates the other man. 

That motivation—and a direct request from the Institution—was what led him to that cramped, fated tent in the middle of nowhere, a couple of weeks ago.

Yet, despite all of that, Arjuna lowered his cup to reveal a genuine smile, a restrained one, but genuine nonetheless. Karna concealed his surprise. “Why, I was here to get to know you. And have…tea with you, of course.”

Karna cracked a small smile in return. He reached for his tea. “Well, I can hardly argue with that.” a small pause, as he added a little more sugar to his tea, and stirred it. “But to respond to what you said earlier, yes, I am not American.”

“Ah, I have guessed as much,” Arjuna said. “I have heard a lot about you.”

“And I, you,” Karna leaned back in his seat, taking a sip of his tea and studying the other man. It appears that Arjuna was studying him, as well. “You’re one of the prodigies in the Association.”

Arjuna gave him a modest smile. “Not what I was known for the most, but acceptable. It is nothing. You, on the other hand, are already so accomplished for someone only a couple of years older than me.”

_Brother_. A memory—or the thread of memory—resurfaces, and Karna frowned for a second. He hoped Arjuna didn’t catch the sudden change of expression like a ripple in still water, but no such hope. The younger man was studying him like a hawk. 

“It _is_ nothing,” Karna said, echoing the other man, smiling slightly as he leaned forward. “I don’t think you’ve told me about your work, though. Not much, at least.”

A cautious expression. “Are we here to talk about work, professor?”

Karna settles back again. Arjuna is more cautious and guarded than he’d initially expected. “No, of course not, doctor. Pardon me and my curiosity. I am, after all,” he looked directly at the other man, gave him the ghost of a smile, “interested in you.”

Arjuna might have blushed, but that could have been a trick of the light. “I might say the same,” he mumbled, but Karna caught it. “As rivals, of course. I am curious and interested in you, obviously.”

That caught Karna’s attention. “As rivals?” he said, raising an eyebrow again, offering Arjuna some biscuits. The other man refused, politely.

There was another awkward silence as Arjuna lowered his gaze in embarrassment, and, for a moment, Karna thought he was going to apologise, or walk away, or even something in-between, but he raised his gaze again, stubbornly meeting Karna’s, and there’s a certain resolve, a particular fire, in it. “As rivals,” he affirms. “I see you as a rival, professor. You should be honoured.”

The haughtiness of it would have taken anyone else aback, anyone but Karna. Karna merely smiled, slightly, sipping his tea. “Then cheers to that, doctor.” he raised his cup. “Didn’t I tell you that titles were unnecessary?”

Another pause. Arjuna gave him an enigmatic smile. “I know now why you joined the Institute. Karna.”

Karna shrugged, draping an arm on his seat. “Of course, Arjuna,” he said, tasting his name on his tongue.

Another long pause. Karna helps himself to another cup, enjoying not only the warmth it offered but also the companionship that he’s having this time. He often made and enjoyed tea by himself for the warmth, mostly when he had done his work or when both work and his magical research has been slow. Right now, Arjuna turns out to be quite an interesting, if not somewhat awkward company, when he’s not feeling threatened.  However, he was pulled out prematurely from his reverie by a light cough. He let his gaze fell on Arjuna. “I apologise if I’ve interrupted any important train of thought, but do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“You interrupt nothing,” Karna said, waving it off, and he leaned forward, interest perked by the openness and sincerity with which Arjuna has said it. The other, younger man has always seemed guarded, distant, and today, despite Arjuna’s effort of building bridges, he was still as distant and enigmatic as ever, and Karna could discern little of his motives and concerns. But for once, he sounded frank, sincere. “Ask away.”

Arjuna’s brown gaze was direct, straight to the core. Karna could feel the fire of it, the heat of his resolve and determination, although beyond that is still an uncharted, undiscovered island to him. Arjuna puzzled him as much as he challenged him. “Do you believe in fate?”

“I believe in the _workings_ of fate,” Karna said, meeting Arjuna’s gaze head-on. “I believe that fate allowed—even _encouraged_ —some individuals to meet and some things to happen.”

There was a pause, and Arjuna looked away, swirling the remains of his now-cooling tea. The liquid, Karna imagined, reflected his eyes, just as dark and deep and enigmatic. “What about past lives, Karna? Do you believe in them?”

Karna tilted his head slightly at the mention. If he closed his eyes, he could remember the dream he’s had last night, of the strange man he’d seen now sitting across him. “It was something stronger than magic,” he allowed himself to admit. “Next thing, you’d be asking me about the butterfly and the storm.”

“Or the butterfly who dreamt that she was human,” Arjuna said, a challenge sparkling in his eyes, “was it the other way around, Karna?”

“What do we know about anything?” Karna countered, lightly flicking his fingers to finish the remaining paperwork. He usually likes doing it the old-fashioned way—to some of his colleagues’ mockery—but time was running out, and something about Arjuna sets the magic in his blood and bones humming. Something in him makes Karna wants to use his innate talent—either for flight or fight or something else, he’s not sure. “That is why we learn, Arjuna.”

“—I’ve had strange dreams,” Arjuna said, raising his chin defiantly. “What do you make of that?”

Karna smiled, very lightly. “I’m not a psychologist,” he said, just as lightly, as if treading on water, “but I suppose a confession merits for a confession, and I have to admit that I’ve been having strange dreams lately, too.”

A flicker of surprise. Another, of confusion. And then other emotions, going too fast for Karna to identify—of fear and doubt and disbelief—and Arjuna looked at him for askance for a moment, opening his mouth, before closing it again and looked away. He put down his cup, the liquid remaining in it dark and unreadable.

“This has been…quite interesting, but I’m afraid I have to go,” he said, his voice just above a whisper, and the room suddenly felt very crowded and yet very quiet and very distant and very very lonely, all at once, “it was nice talking to you, professor.”

Karna knows his intuition has been quite correct. This time, though, he _was_ surprised, and he wanted to stand up and simply shake the hand Arjuna offered him and let him go, catch his flight, forget that this chat has happened at all. And in a day or three, forget about everything that has been happening between them, if it can be called that at all. 

But he could never forget his dreams—what happened in the border between myth and reality, between legend and something else. He could never forget the man who was supposed to be his brother, the man who was his killer, his murderer. 

Karna reached out without thinking, rising from his seat and crossing the small distance between them, grabbing Arjuna’s arm. _He has the hands of an archer, not a butcher_. “Stay.” he said, blurting it out, defying all logic and reason and feeling the surge of embarrassment and—fear of something else?—as Arjuna narrowed his eyes at him in anger. “Please,” Karna added, trying to smooth it out. 

For a moment, they stood like that, Arjuna’s nostrils flaring, Karna looked at him, only vaguely pleading. “There’s still…there’s still something I wanted to talk to you about,” he added, lying through his teeth. Karna had never made lying a habit—all the more reason why he’s ill-fitting in a world of cutthroat mages—and he quickly bit his tongue after that. To his surprise, Arjuna—despite the angry look (and something else, something Karna couldn’t quite comprehend just yet)—looked away, but didn’t pull away. “No,” he said, fear and anger entwined, tightly coiled in his voice like twin snakes, sinuous and dangerous. “We have nothing more to talk about.”

He was right. Karna bit his bottom lip, for the first time feeling nervous and out of his depth. He wondered if Arjuna felt the same, if—if he felt just as juvenile, if he felt the magic in his veins thrumming and humming like bottled thunder, or like sunbeams lancing through a window. If his magic called out to Karna’s magic. In one swift, surprising move, Karna felt himself moving towards him, and, just as surprisingly, he felt Arjuna’s lips on his. It was only for a moment, yet it was forever. 

He closed his eyes, kissing him back, tasting the other’s lips and leaning forward, yet—yet, Arjuna pulled away all too soon, blushing deeply. He pulled his arm free, and Karna lets him. 

There was nothing more to be said between them as Arjuna pulled his jacket from the hanger and left, closing the door behind him, leaving the room bare as it has never been before. There was a quietness that gnaws on the walls and creeps on the floor after he’d left, his not-yet empty cup left on the desk in front of where he’d been sitting before, dark liquid indecipherable, proof that someone else has been there in the office with him.

Karna gathered the cups and places them on the coffee table, and sat back behind his desk. He closed his eyes, for a moment, and thought about the man in his dreams. The man who had been so unreachable yet came to apologise, albeit more than a little awkwardly. He wondered, vaguely, about Arjuna’s wish towards the Holy Grail, why he had been so insistent in being chosen. What that man’s wish could have been.

When he opens them again, his scriber was hastily scribing a message, one in an unfamiliar hand, but one which Karna felt like he knows— _may the best man wins_. _Arjuna._ He ripped the message out, smiling slightly.

May the best man wins indeed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, comments & suggestions welcome <3
> 
> hmu at twitter: @raginghel


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